Bóymoder cooking business

Bóymoder Dough Basics

Kneading

Once the flour is mixed with water, gluten starts to form. Gluten is a protein that can stretch and strengthen itself as you work it, making your dough stronger.

Stronger gluten makes the dough less sticky and allows it to trap air bubbles inside, very useful when baking bread.

Stronger gluten also leads to the dough being chewier, something you do want to bread, pizza, pasta but don't want for cakes and most delicate sweets, that's why overmixing can be a concern sometimes.

To knead the dough and develop a good gluten network you need to stretch the dough and fold it over on itself.

Press on your dough making it roll forwards, fold it back on itself, rotate 90 degrees then press again. Repeat until your dough is fully kneaded.

Video from wikimedia

You can also use a stand mixer for kneading with the spiraly hook attachment. Saves a lot of work on your cute lil boymoder arms!

Only dough i wouldn't knead with a stand mixer is pasta, from experience, it doesn't work as well as kneading by hand

Hydration

When flour comes into contact with water, it is hydrated, that actives the proteins (mainly, gluten) and allows you work it into a dough.

How much water is added defines the "hydration percentage" of the dough, higher hydration makes the dough more loose sticker and generally harder to work with, lower hydration makes the dough firmer and less sticky.

Hydration is always measured by weight, if you have 100g flour and 100g water, that is 100% hydration, if you have 100g flour and 50g water, that is 50% hydration.

Here are some common hydration percentages:

You can play around with hydration and i recommend you do so, add a lil bit more or less of water than the recipe says to see how your dough reacts, boymoder cooking science :3